• Kaija Saariaho
  • Trois poèmes de Jacques Prévert (2020)

  • Chester Music Ltd (World)
  • vn + Actor
  • 9 min
  • Jacques Prévert
  • French

Programme Note

Like the short pieces that were eventually collected into The Tempest Songbook, Trois poèmes de Jacques Prévert is a series of poems that Kaija set to music separately over the years on the occasions of birthdays. As with the Tempest arias, each text was chosen because of subjective associations with the dedicatee. On these happy occasions, Kaija was drawn to the playful nature of Prévert’s use of language and to his way of conjuring poetic depth out of the ordinary – they inspired her to write music that utilizes the idiom usual to her violin writing, all while lending it a new flavor and lightness. The exploration of the combination of spoken text and instrumental music, new to her palette, was also closely related to the process of composing the opera Innocence.

Kaija had planned to set more of Prévert’s poems for future celebrations and publish the resulting cycle, but her efforts were interrupted by her untimely death.

In their original context of performance, these poems came through as quirky impromptu toasts: speeches that would interrupt a birthday reception with unexpected statements and meditations. The scoring for violin and actor – intended to allow for the two of us to perform the pieces together – opens to the possibility of presenting them in any language, if a rhythmically suitable translation is available or made.

Aleksi Barrière & Aliisa Neige Barrière

June 2023

Scores

Sample pages for perusal